All Of Me
by LoverFaery
Summary: To this day, I don't know why I did it. Roger and his out of control postApril depression. Actually not all that angsty, cosidering the subject material. Rated for suicide and language.


**Summary:** Holiday cheer comes hurtling your way via shoddy attempts at suicide! Roger attempts to pull an April and manages to botch even his own slit wrists. 

Rated for (duh, suicide! And) my overuse of the phrase "stupid dumbfuck." "Stupid Dumbfuck" would actually be a much more apt title for this piece, albeit less cute.

**Disclaimer:** All standard disclaimers apply (I own none of this, don't sue me, blah, blah, blah.)

**Author's Note:** If this is complete shit, it's all my fault. I usually give these things a day or two to sit while I decide if they're worth it, but I wanted to put something out there today (originally, this "today" was Christmas Eve... internet connection- lack thereof-killed me.) and there wasn't time... you know how it goes.

So, happy Atheist Children Get Presents Day and all that shit.

**All Of Me**

To this day, I don't know why I did it.

I was depressed, I guess, alone and betrayed and so fucking _hurt_ that it made sense at the time.

It helped that I was so strung out that there was no little voice to tell me what a stupid dumbfuck I was being.

It was only about a week and a half after April died and I was starting to discover just how miserable withdrawals could make me, and that probably had something to do with it. And everyone was tiptoeing around me, Benny with his resentment over God knows what, Collins with his silent trying-to-comfort, and Mark with his sad puppy dog eyes following me everywhere I went, making me feel shitty for feeling so shitty. That probably played into it, too. But I don't remember any of that, not really. I barely remember most of that year, condensed as it was into pain and nausea and a cool cloth at my head that was Mark.

I don't remember where I got the razor.

I remember the sharp twinge of pain as the blade cut through flesh. I remember the outpouring of blood from my hand. I donr't remember screaming, but Mark says I did, so I must have.

I remember him coming in and that look on his face.

I remember him saying "Shit! Fuck, Roger, what did you do?" but knowing he already knew. He ran a hand through that light blond hair, already starting to go pale at the blood. He never had the stomach for blood.

I remember trying to explain to him how pretty the blood was, the vivid red of fresh blood down my skin and on the tile. I remember holding my hand up to him. "Look, Marky. It's so beautiful. Life fleeting, time dying,_look at it_." I was so stoned.

He swallowed convulsively. "Let's get you cleaned up, Roger." He said. "Come on, stand up, that's it."

I don't remember how he bandaged my hand and got me to change clothes and into bed. I must've still been conscious, because Mark couldn't have gotten me there without help. Even at my most skeletal, I outweighed Mark in bones alone.

I remember coming to, four hours or so later, sobering up. I remember the hangover-y feeling of lost blood and coming off a trip. I remember the pain in my hand. I remember Mark where he'd dozed off waiting for me to wake up. I remember the swipe of dried blood across one of his pale cheeks.

"Marky." I said, voice only a croak.

He looked up, so quickly I thought maybe I'd been mistaken about his sleep. But his eyes blinked too fast, and his voice had that sleepy lilt. "Yeah, Rog? You need anything?" He looked tired, very tired, and sad. It was the first time I'd really looked at him in weeks, and I maybe only then realized what an impact my ordeal was having on him.

I squeezed my eyes shut around the Technicolor dizziness. "No." I whispered. "I slit my wrist?"

"Your hand, Roger. You missed the wrist."

"Lost blood?"

"A lot."

"I know. There's a feeling... a heady buzz, sort of dizzy and disconnected." I answered. "I feel it."

"Sort of like being on smack?" He asked sharply, and I felt a stab of pain that he thought I'd do this for a high. Then I remembered I'd once described tripping this way, a 'heady buzz.' But this was so, so different. Being on heroin made you feel excited and alive, and this feeling was wearying.

"…No. Sort of queasy. Not pleasant."

"Oh." Mark paused. "You know how it…?" He trailed off, let the question hang there, daring me to answer unasked words.

I glanced at him pointedly. "Not the first time." I told him.

"Oh." His voice was quiet, and I thought he might be crying. I knew I was.

"You cleaned it up?"

"Someone had to. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. You know that." I felt his hand playing with my hair, the hair I hadn't washed since I didn't know when.

"But, Marky, you…"

The memory fades here, fades back into the withdrawal fuzziness as my body begins craving another hit. Shaking and sweating and throwing up, but like I said I don't remember any specifics. It was just hell.

"Illin'."

And Mark just stayed there like an idiot, taking care of me even though I think I remember yelling at him once or twice to get the fuck away from me.

Coming out of it for brief moments, I remember him changing my bandages. The cut was soft around the edges by then, maybe three days old.

"Mark." I called. "Mark!"

A cool cloth was placed on my head. Mark.

"The cut." I prompted.

"Almost healed by now." Mark answered, like he thought I was asking for an update. "We kept it pretty clean and it looks good." _We_, as though I had anything to do with it. I felt his warmth on my injured hand as he held it tenderly in his own.

"No." I said, "No. I was stupid, Marky." I felt a few hot tears trailing their way across my skin, covered as it was in a cold sweat. "Really, really stupid."

Mark smiled warmly. "It's okay, Roger. You didn't mean it."

"I _did_. I screwed up, Marky. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you. It's not your fault you're a stupid dumbfuck." His smile faded just a little as the sadness crept back into his eyes. "I forgive you. Always."

He didn't have time to jump out of the way before I threw up on his feet.

**-break-**

It isn't until much, much later, almost a year, when Mimi is curled up next to me in her bed, that I think of it again. She's laying next to me in the dark, all soft curves and matted hair, fingers and eyes tracing every line of me in a moment of postcoital exploration.

When she comes to that place on my left palm, where the almost invisible scar has turned pearly in the moonlight, she looks up at me with those shining eyes. Her gentle fingers follow the scar, starting where it originates just to the right of my thumb, winding along its twisted path to where it barely nicked that vein where my hand joins my wrist.

"What is this?" She asks, lips pouty and eyes radiating an innocence you'd think would be difficult for a drug-addicted stripper.

I let out a hollow laugh. "Nothing. That's nothing." I am not surprised she doesn't know. It doesn't look anything like most attempted suicide scars I've seen.

"What happened?" She presses.

"I was a stupid dumbfuck, that's what happened."

She smiles, cocking her head so a tiny piece of hair tickles my shoulder. "You had an accident. Something manly, I hope." Mimi giggles, playing with my fingers and snuggling closer to my body. "What kind of accident was it?"

I snort. "The kind where I was depressed and stupid and too high to even hit my wrist with a razor blade."

Her big eyes widen, seeming to attract every ray of moonlight in the apartment. "Oh." She coos softly. I expect her to recoil. I don't expect what she does next.

Much to my surprise, she leans down over my hand and begins planting a trail of soft kisses down the length of the scar.

"You aren't... repulsed?" I ask, peering curiously down at her.

"Why would I be?" She replies, lifting her face to mine. "It was a long time ago. It didn't work. You're here with me. Why should I care what you did before you knew me? All that matters it that you're here, now." She lays one last tender kiss on the very end of the crooked line, just to the left of center- where, had I not been high as a kite, the cut would have begun and possibly killed me.

Her final kiss is soft and sweet against my lips. "Besides," she murmurs sleepily, laying her head and left arm across my chest, "I love all of you, even the stupid dumbfuck parts."

She nestles up against me, head finding the curve of my chest where it fits perfectly, arm playing over my belly. My left arm curls around beneath her, leaving my left hand- the one with the scar- free to trace up and down her spine.

As she drifts off to gentle sleep beside me, I send a silent thanks to the moonlit night that I have such a collection of people who love all of me, even the stupid dumbfuck parts.


End file.
